BREAKING NEWS
LIRR Disability Pension Fraud
SUMMARY
Doctors, LIRR Retirees, and Facilitators Allegedly Faked and Exaggerated Pre-Planned Disabilities to Fraudulently
Obtain Benefits from the Railroad Retirement Board
PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, MARTIN J. DICKMAN, Inspector General of the Railroad Retirement Board, JANICE K. FEDARCYK, the Assistant Director –in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,and BARRY L. KLUGER, Inspector General of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, announced charges against 11 defendants for participating in a massive fraud scheme from 1998 to the present in which Long Island Railroad workers claimed to be disabled upon early retirement so that they could receive extra pension benefits to which they were not entitled. Charged were two doctors, an office manager, two facilitators, and seven LIRR retirees (including one of the charged facilitators). The fraudulent scheme could ultimately cause the RRB to pay in excess of $1 billion in unwarranted occupational disability benefits if disbursed in full.